A few weeks ago, LaunchBar 5.5 update brought — among other interesting things — a new feature called Snippets, which actually is a complete overhaul of its previous “Text Clippings” feature. As the devs advertised Snippets as “a serious text expansion tool”, I was curious to see how this compares to one of the references in text substitution on the Mac: TextExpander.

So, for one week, I did a little experiment: I closed TextExpander and acted as if it was never installed on my Mac, and chose to use only LaunchBar instead. Read on to find out how all of this turned out.

I went for years not even knowing what a text insertion or text expansion app was, and when I finally did learn, I was so put off by the high prices of some of the big names on the market that it took awhile before I even found out what the big deal was. Once you’ve started using a text insertion app, though, it’s hard to imagine those days of yore, when you used to actually type things. The memories still haunt me.

But man, are those apps expensive, right? Not necessarily, and today we’re going to take a look at aText, a great text insertion app with a tiny price tag. But does that mean it’s also going to be small on features? We’ll check it out! (more…)

While Macs are more popular than they’ve ever been, Windows computers still form the majority of the market. Many of us, in fact, spend time using both, perhaps a Mac at home while on a PC at work. Working with others means even full time Mac users often needs to exchange files and data with users running Windows.

Fortunately the increased popularity of Macs makes this split environment easier than ever. Many common applications are cross platform and available for both Mac and Windows computers, and open standards and web apps make up for the rest. Let’s look at some apps that make it easier on everyone when working on both Macs and PCs. (more…)

If you use TextExpander much, chances are you don’t actually think about the app itself that much. You’ve added your own shortcuts to it over the years, and now you type them in and they’re automatically expanded without you even thinking. It just becomes another part of your Mac.

This week, Smile Software released the first full new version of TextExpander since 2010. It adds several new features, but if you’re already using TextExpander 3, a quick glance at their new features list might not even make it seem like its worth your time to upgrade. After all, when’s the last time you opened the TextExpander window, anyhow?

This post is part of a series that revisits some of our readers’ favorite articles from the past that still contain awesome and relevant information that you might find useful. This post was originally published on May 2nd, 2011.

I used to think of the Mac clipboard as a mysterious, magical place that held all my copied information in some unknown place that I could never access, but that sometimes gave me exactly what I needed.

When I got into web development, I realized that I needed to find this enigmatic clipboard and put it to good use. Enter Clips, a newly released premium clipboard manager for Mac.

Clips’ developers claim that using Clips will increase your productivity while you work on your mac, find out if it really can make your computing more fruitful after the jump!

As a writer, one utility that I simply can’t live without is some sort of text expansion app. These tools are simply invaluable to my workflow and save me hours of typing every month. I personally am a huge fan of TextExpander. It’s my go to text expansion app and it simply blows away the competition. I wouldn’t dream of switching.

That being said, I realize that not everyone can justify dropping $34.95 for a snippet expander. Newbies to this specific app genre might want to cut their teeth on a free app, so today we’re going to compare two such apps from the Mac App Store: xType (formerly Presto) and DashExpander. How are these two apps different? Which is the best for your needs? Read on to find out.

I know that many of our readers are big fans of TextExpander, and rightly so. It’s a wonderful application that can save – quite literally – days of your time over the course of a few years. Although we usually focus exclusively on Mac software here, today I’d like to take a few moments to introduce you to TextExpander’s mobile counterpart.

TextExpander touch aims to replicate the text-expanding magic on your iPhone or iPod touch, and it does so surprisingly well! You can store snippets, then quickly retrieve them to send to Mail and Twitter clients, or use them in any other app via copy-and-paste.

In addition, you can use your TextExpander touch snippets directly in over 80 apps that support it, including Twittelator, TwitBird Pro, Osfoora, Elements, Simplenote, WriteRoom, Nebulous Notes, Pocket Informant, Things, and Todo (you can see a complete list here).

If you regularly find yourself typing the same piece of text over and over again, TextExpander could be a real life-saver. It’s a simple way to store a library of regularly used text snippets, and easily recall them using a pre-defined keyword.

I use TextExpander countless times every day, and it comes in handy all the time. Whether you often send out very similar emails, or just like to speed up your coding, you should definitely give TextExpander a try.

Version 3 brings a range of new features, including fill-in-the-blank snippets, shortcuts for entering new snippets, a shortcut to edit the last expanded snippet, and snippet search and suggestion via a quick keyboard shortcut. There’s an excellent video tutorial that demonstrates all of TextExpander’s features, including these new ones.

We also have an exclusive discount code for AppStorm readers, good for 20% off the full version TextExpander (single license or family pack). Just use the code APPSTORMTE when checking out, and be sure to do so before it expires on the 5th December!

Winners Announced

I’m pleased to announce that we’ve announced the three lucky winners! Congratulations are in order to:

Wiehann Radyn

Adam M

Smyge

Original Competition

Today we’re kicking off a new competition to win a copy of TextExpander. We recently published a head to head of text expanding apps, putting different software in this category through its paces. Text Expander came out as one of the best apps available, and we’re thrilled to give you the chance to win a copy today!

We have three full licenses up for grabs, and entering is really simple. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post, letting us know why you’d like to win a copy!

The competition will run for one week, and we’ll announce the randomly selected winners on the Thursday 28th October. Good luck, and enjoy your weekend!